xangalala

It is pronounced, "sh-on-ga-la-la."  That’s right, not Shangri-La but, "sh-on-ga-la-la."  This word (which is rather fun to say) is the name of the town where I spent this past weekend.

For those of you not expert in the geography of southwestern Angola, here is Xangalala.  It is a blink-and-you-miss-it sized town way out in the boondocks.  It is just 12km from Xangongo though.  Xangongo is not a tourist destination.  It is a highway town teeming with booze, crime, and AIDS.

Why then, you should be asking yourself, did I find my way down that highway, through Xangongo, and to Xangalala?  The answer: to move the Kubacki's, my now-former host family.  Buckle up. It was a weekend worth writing home about.

Let's meet the Kubacki's.  This missionary family has an amazing history and a very bright future.  Pictured below from left to right are Meredith, Ben, Ellie, Betsy, and Tim (he's tall, the picture is deceiving).  Not pictured is current Ohio University student Luke.  Also note their worldly possessions packed and tied down!

The 6 Kubacki's have documented both their calling and lives beautifully over at http://kubacki6.wordpress.com  To briefly summarize, they spent six years deep in the Brazilian Amazon before re-locating to Angola.  Witnessing and practicing medicine all the while, they are particularly interested in more rural communities.  More about Xangalala in a bit, but when a position presented itself outside of urban Lubango, the Kubacki's signed up.

After a week or so of a bustling, normal, furnished home, my Lubango dwelling was gradually boxed up.  I came home from the hospital one evening to find the furniture in my room disappeared.

As packing and chore lists were issued from the desk of the matriarch, the reality of the move settled in for the family and their guest alike.

Always chipper, I was impressed with the way the family recognized the impending opportunity amidst the always joyous moving process.

I took off Friday at CEML to offer my able body with final loading and the trip to Xangalala.  Up at 6:00am that morning, we somehow managed to play Tetris with their belongings really, really well.  With every angle, nook, and cranny (is there any other way a person has ever used the word cranny?) considered, we departed the spacious apartment on one of Lubango's main streets for the next chapter of the Kubacki story. 

The next stop was a warehouse near the airport.  In our convoy was a super-clutch F-550.  Now loaded with more plywood than I thought would be possible, it was time to hit the road.  Prepared for rain, we congratulated each other on such a quality job with the tarp.

We (Tim, Ben, and I) descended from our topographical throne out into the countryside and settled in for our 330km drive.  Armed with peanuts, tangerines, some crackers, and water we brought up the rear along with the big truck.  The rain was nowhere to be found but in its place we found cattle.  I learned something about our bovine friends last weekend: they do not care about oncoming traffic.  Not twenty minutes into the trek, a large herd crossed the road a bit ahead of us.  We slowed accordingly and just as Tim eased back on the gas (now going easily 45mph), a straggler ran out into the road.  A huge swerve to the left in the fully loaded Land Cruiser somehow avoided Bevo.  With fatherly-expert driving skills he corrected into our lane not six seconds before an oncoming semi-truck thundered through.  Adrenaline was pumped.  We were safe.

Wind is powerful.  Mother Nature is humbling.  We men, very reluctantly, eventually accepted defeat after having stopped every couple kilometers to try and repair our now-tattered tarp.

So about that 330km drive.  That is equivalent to 205 miles.  It took us six and a half hours.  Why?  Unpaved roads.  I have mentioned the government's investment and quality of major roads before.  EN 105, however, is not yet finished.  The last 120km or so was bumpy to say the least.

A very powerful part of the trip so far was seeing the people of the countryside.  While the population density and pollution are lower, the poverty is way higher.  The slums of Lubango gave way to the literal sticks of the outlying areas.

Scores of times, as we drove by families, the children would run after our car with their hands to their mouths. Although obvious they had been coached to do so, it was very emotional to see.

Early that evening we arrived at our destination.  Xangalala was a mission established by the Finns in the 1950's.  The catch is that no doctor has worked at the hospital since 2004!  In fact, the new Kubacki house has been unlived-in for the last six years.  I told you they are into serving those who have no other services!

Pictures here are of the hospital that Dr. Kubacki will now staff:

Almost all developing clinics have patients keep their own charts.  Xangalala, however, has a medical records department: 

Need to use the clinic's restrooms?  I'm pretty sure that even the Gomer Dads Club has better facilities.

The outpatient waiting area and lodging for patients' families:

The Emergency Room:

The men's inpatient ward (room):

Welcome to the maternity ward:

Xangalala is beautiful.  The mission, and especially their home, are situated on a bluff overlooking the flood plains of the Cunene River.  This body of water goes on to form the border between Angola and Namibia and is a magnificent sight to be seen.

The crew of about fifteen friends trickled in through those dusky hours and unloaded the vehicles in anticipation of the weekend's waiting chores.

Let's talk about sleeping arrangements briefly.  This past Friday and Saturday, I slept on an uncovered cloth twin mattress in an 80℉ room with three other men using my book bag as a pillow.  I did not sleep well.  It was fortuitous though to pick up that mosquito net on the way to the airport (thanks John).

Also contributing to my poor sleep: roosters.  Some sixty feet from the window at the head of my, "bed," were some foul fowl.  Very strong with the, "cock-a-doodle," but noticeably weak on their, "-do," I was awake a little before 6:00am.

I was ready to do some work.  Tim had many tasks for the weekend and being no stranger to manual labor, I was ready to actively say thanks for having hosted.  I volunteered for demolition.  I can straight up swing a sledgehammer.  Betsy wanted a kitchen wall gone in hopes of undoing that whole 1950's lots-of-small-rooms architecture deal.  We got to work.

It turned out, however, this wall was made of 40lb. adobe bricks encased in ceramic tile, an inch of concrete, and plaster.  This 108 cu. ft. of misery took seven hours to bring down and clear.

Included in the pictures here are first Aaron, my brother in arms, and Lawrence.  Aaron and I were in for the long haul and shared an arduous day and only God knows what kinds of fungal spores in that adobe.  Lawrence (standing in the doorway) is a man.  Much like my own father, he is a laid back dude and an all-out handyman.  He lives and works on a farm (i.e. 65,000 acres) that hires the impoverished and profit shares with all involved.  He was even more legit for two reasons: a voice as enigmatically majestic as Paul Keels' and, like all dads, epic man strength.

For the collectors out there, the Carpenter Zach, Mason Zach, and Demolition Zach action figures all made appearances last weekend.  I also want to share that I peeled an orange in a single piece twice on Saturday.  The rest of the crew did a fantastic job painting every other room of the house than the kitchen and getting the family as ready to reside as possible.  The rest of the story that needs to be told, however, still involves that pesky kitchen wall.

With the floor completely cleared and swept of final debris, the plan was to preserve the top couple rows of adobe and to put a new cement header underneath.  In this manner, the ceiling in place would be usable!  A detail that I purposely omitted until now was the appearance of said ceiling.  For some reason, when we first entered the kitchen, the ceiling tiles all appeared to be bowed.  These 4' x 4' squares were sagging under the weight of years' worth of bat droppings.  That's right, guano.  The seven o'clock hour was quite the sight as those blind mammals emerged from crannies (I did it!) on the roof's edge.

It is now Sunday late morning, around 10:00am.  I was catching a ride back at noon.  I was working to repair the bat-prophylactic screens on the roof vents.  Tim was working in the kitchen cleaning up the edge for the ceiling beam-to-be.  I needed the ladder he was using and asked to use it when he was done.  As I am cutting screen on the porch, Tim emerged with the ladder saying he needed a short break.  Seconds after he left me, when out of the kitchen there arose such a clatter, we all sprang to see what was the matter.  40lb. adobe bricks, speared crags of ceramic and concrete, and a 2x6 ceiling frame had crashed down on the spot Tim had vacated not a minute before.

It was an openly raw scene as Betsy screamed for Tim as soon as it happened, knowing he had been in there.  Thankful for his safety, we all took a second - or two - to compose ourselves.  I, for one, had grossly underestimated the danger of where I had been working.

Our problems now were two-fold: delayed progress and smell.  We spent the rest of our time re-clearing the kitchen.  We were literally taking guano out by the wheelbarrow-full (that is not dust in the foreground).  I have spent some time thinking about how to most accurately characterize the smell.  I have settled on cat urine jerky.

My formerly calloused hands have gone soft with my white collar ways.  I took my left-handed blisters and my book bag and caught a ride back with Birgit and Dr. Collins.  Dr. Collins and I bonded over our mothers' shared birthday that day.  I gained further insight into his affectation for singing, spy novels, and tea.  I was able to listen to Voice of America which was a neat experience.  We stopped for more cattle.  I was treated to the story of when Dr. Foster hit and killed a goat and the owners accepted 50kg of sugar that he had in the car as reparations.  The drive only took five and half hours this time!

We got back to the Lubango city limits a touch after sunset: you know, that time of day when you're not quite sure whether to squint or to accept the low light of nightfall.  With lofty plans of blogging, reading, and getting things in order for the week ahead, I collapsed within minutes of arriving at my now empty residence.  The bed, though, was a marvelous upgrade.

Another full weekend!